Noctua reveals fifth-gen NH-U12 cooler

Noctua has given us a glimpse into its future product stack at Computex 2018, revealing a new version of the NH-U12 cooler, a couple of prototype flagship coolers, and a desk cooler.

The NH-U12 is the fifth-generation of this design. The primary upgrade is the switch to Noctua’s own NF-A12x12 120mm premium fans that have been five years in the making and have an extremely tight clearance between the blade tip and frame. The NH-U12 uses two of them in a push-pull configuration, includes seven heat pipes, and has 37 percent more surface area compared to the NH-U12S. A live demo at the Computex 2018 booth showed the new cooler running next to the flagship NH-D15 and achieving performance within 1°C of it at 220W load. Noctua promises excellent PCIe and RAM compatibility with this cooler, and you can expect to see it towards the end of the year or early next year at a price of around 100 Euros.

With its 120mm coolers now encroaching on the performance of its 140mm coolers, Noctua is working on 140mm-based prototypes, and showed us both single and dual-tower designs. These are still being fine-tuned, but the takeaway for fans of Noctua’s biggest and best coolers is that more is still to come.

A more unique product on show was a desk fan, again using the NF-A12x12 fan this time fitted with a so-called Airflow Amplification System. The design of this funnel-like device works in three ways, first leveraging the rotational energy of the airflow and converting into a more linear energy, second by progressively narrowing the funnels to speed up the air, and thirdly via the venturi effect whereby pressure drops as air accelerates, meaning that additional air is drawn in at the sides of where the air leaves. This is still in prototype form, so there is no word on a release date or pricing just yet.

A huge shoutout to Noctua as well for not having a single god-damn RGB LED in sight.